High School

Introduction to Pi

There is probably no number that has received more interest since ancient times that the number pi, symbolized by the Greek letter π.  Originally defined as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, it has been given approximate values including 3.14 and 22/7.  Proven to be an irrational number, supercomputers have computed the value of pi to more than one trillion digits.

Introduction

Have you ever been told not to follow too close to the driver ahead of you?  To keep a safe distance?  To abide by the "3-second rule"?  To keep a distance of at least one car length for every ten miles per hour of speed?  These questions all deal with the issue of stopping distance versus speed in order to avoid crashes.  A great way to investigate the relationship between stopping distance and speed is to interface Voyager with an "intelino® smart train".   Designed for all ages, intelino is intuitive with its app, has bui

Introduction

While driving at 40 mph, you see a red stop light ahead.  You press your brakes for several seconds, gradually coming to a stop.  A little later on the same road at 40 mph, you approach another light, this time green.  While approaching this light, it suddenly changes to yellow.  You make a split-second decision to put on your brakes to avoid going through a red light.  With the brakes applied quite hard, you quickly stop, waking up your sleeping friend in the front passenger seat.

Introduction

This lesson features Voyager and the "intelino® smart train" in a lab for AP physics students.  Designed for all ages, intelino is intuitive with its app, has built-in sensors to provide an interactive experience for the user, and is easily programmed with color snaps that allow the user to control intelino's actions.  Students are challenged to design and carry out an experiment to show that impulse is equal to change in momentum when Voyager is mounted to an intelino smart engine that suddenly reverses itself.

Introduction

In a previous lesson the "intelino® smart train" was introduced, and an activity on speed for 4th grade through middle school students was presented.  In that lesson Voyager was "on board" the intelino train and collected data for measuring the speed of the train.  With students at the 4th grade level learning angle measurements in degrees and also having a solid foundation in multiplication and long division, there is

Introduction

Damping causes oscillatory systems to dissipate energy to their surroundings.  Frictional losses are quite common in mechanical systems and result in damped simple harmonic motion.  For example, when a child stops pumping a swing, the amplitude of the oscillations gradually decay toward zero.  The same thing happens to a mass that hangs from an oscillating spring.  It is quite common for the amplitude of such oscillations to exhibit a behavior that is negative exp

First, what is particulate matter (PM)? Particulate matter is a mixture of solids and/or liquids suspended within the air. These solids and liquids are too small for the eye to see, however, if they're in a high enough concentration it will often look like a haze in the air.  The particles that make it up can be anything from pollen and dust to even molecules of water. The number at the end (ex. the 10 in PM10) is the upper limit of the particles’ diameter. A size comparison produced by the US EPA can be seen below.

It is almost instinctive when you first get the PocketLab Air to breathe directly on it just to see what happens. As seen below, of the PocketLab Air's seven sensors, five of them detect changes from a direct human breath. These parameters are carbon dioxide, particulate matter, temperature, humidity, and pressure. The most interesting of these is the sharp rise in carbon dioxide which, as the most important greenhouse gas, brings about strong connections to the topic of climate change.

Introduction

Damping causes oscillatory systems to dissipate energy to their surroundings.  Frictional losses are quite common in mechanical systems.  For example, when a child stops pumping a swing, the amplitude of the oscillations gradually decay toward zero.  The same thing happens to a mass that hangs from an oscillating spring.  It is quite common for the amplitude of such oscillations to exhibit a behavior that is negative exponential over time, as shown in Figure 1.  The graph indicates that if we take the amplitude at time t=0 to be 1, then the amplitude at time